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A bipartisan duo of House lawmakers introduced legislation on Wednesday that aims to combat patent trolls—firms that accumulate patents for the purpose of suing other companies rather than creating new products.

Back in December, Judge Lucy Koh refused to give Apple the sales bans it wanted on 26 Samsung products found to infringe on its patents, ruling that Apple needed to establish that the patented features were "important drivers" of demand for the offending devices. Now Apple is appealing the ruling, arguing that it sets the bar too high, and it’s getting help from an unlikely friend — Nokia.

On Saturday, around 18 months after President Obama signed it into law, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act will take effect. Ostensibly, the act is designed to bring U.S. patent law in line with the rest of the world. Of course, not everybody feels it will help achieve the patent system's goal of protecting inventors while fostering innovation, and its effect could be even more pronounced on the DIY inventor.

A new Apple invention could make iPhone cases a thing of the past. The “Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device” identifies when a phone is falling and adjusts its center of mass to control its landing. The patent for the invention was recently published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Google just announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge, a new initiative whereby the company has promised not to sue developers, distributors, and users of open source software utilizing Mountain View's patents "unless first attacked.

Wired has been running a special series of expert opinions on "the patent fix," including specific proposals for fixing the software patent problem. This is the final piece in the series, from the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents at the EFF.

Bitcoin, the world’s most popular virtual currency, is also its most hyped. The value of one Bitcoin has climbed from just over $20 two months ago to around $185 a day, and press coverage of Bitcoin has increased right along with it.

A San Francisco-based startup is looking to kill off companies that buy and enforce patents in the technology sector but do nothing else with their IP. Unified Patents is looking to recruit companies of all sizes for a collective effort to end patent infringement lawsuits brought forth by patent troll.

One of the reasons why 3D printing is suddenly on the cusp of going mainstream is the expiration of some key patents that have held the technology back for decades. And yet, of course, with any area of the market that is getting hot, there is...

We've talked a lot about the tax on innovation that patent trolls create, which is well-known inside startup circles but often misunderstood by the broader public, thanks to the pro-innovation rhetoric of high-profile trolls like Intellectual Ventures.

As a lawyer who works in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Len Nannarone has helped his fair share of tech companies. But the most important startup he’s advised is much closer to home: his 10-year-old son, Owen, a budding inventor and entrepreneur.

Patent trolls are the bad guys of the moment. They’re the outfits that buy patents and then sue companies that supposedly infringe on them. Last week, the White House announced a bunch of initiatives to thwart them. Trolls don’t actually make the products covered by those patents.

David Copperfield spends years developing illusions, perfecting patter, and mastering misdirection. And then lots of large-scale illusionists steal his style, his jokes, his presentations. I know countless magicians whose tricks have been copied, wholesale, with no new innovations. How can they all get away with it? Because they can.